What Really Happened

Chapter seventeen

HAROLD PRENTISS DID POSSESS a pair of sandals. At Shayne’s insistence he reluctantly produced them from behind a door, protesting that he was needed at the studio and that it was outrageous to force a man in his position to go to police headquarters with no more relevant information than he had.

Shayne was adamant, and escorted him firmly down the stairs, waited impatiently while Prentiss shouted to someone in the studio that he would be back shortly, then took him out to his car.

Prentiss sat beside him in glum silence throughout the ride, and Shayne didn’t attempt to question him further. There would be plenty of questions thrown at him as soon as he admitted having taken Helen Taylor to dinner the previous evening; plenty of unpleasant suspicion focused on him for having failed to report that fact to the police.

Shayne parked in front of the police station just across from the F.E.C. tracks. They got out together and the detective led the way in through a side door and down a hall to Will Gentry’s private office at the end. The door stood ajar and he pushed it open without knocking.

Chief Gentry sat behind his desk chewing on the soggy butt of a cigar and frowning at a typed notation before him. He rolled his rumpled eyelids up when Shayne said. “I brought you a little present, Will. If I’d had time I would have wrapped him up in tissue paper and tied a red ribbon around his neck.”

Gentry shifted his cigar, looked Prentiss over from his bald head to the purple toenails peeking through the sandals. “On him,” he agreed, “tissue paper and a red ribbon would look good.”

Prentiss cleared his throat and started to speak, but Shayne intervened, “He wants to tell you about taking Helen Taylor to dinner last night. Don’t be too tough on him for not coming in sooner, because the morning paper just had a brief item about her death and didn’t mention poison. I’ve got to beat it, Will,” he went on swiftly, “and I’ve already heard his story. You turned up anything important yet?”

“Not much.” Gentry motioned tor the assistant director to sit down. “I just had this report from Detroit, but it’s not much. Just enough to show you were on the right track.” He looked down at the paper he had been studying. “Nineteen thirty-three is the only record the police have on Wanda Weatherby. Prohibition was on the way out and the rackets were busting up. In a city-wide roundup of one of the Capone mobs, a gal named Wanda Weatherby got caught in the net. No particular charge against her, and she was later released when the police doctor discovered she was going to have a baby. They have no further record of her.”

“Was she married?” Shayne asked.

“No record of a marriage,” rumbled the chief.

Shayne was silently thoughtful for a moment, tugging at his left earlobe. Then he reminded the chief, “Jack Gurley first came to Miami with Capone. Was he picked up with her in Detroit?”

“No. I checked that particularly. There’s no mention of The Lantern.”

“Have you picked up Gurley yet?”

“We’ve got him,” Gentry growled, “but he isn’t talking. He’s sitting right on top of his constitutional rights and demanding that we charge him with something so he can have a mouthpiece.”

Shayne shrugged and said, “How does he explain Wanda’s letter accusing him of attempted murder?”

“He doesn’t. He’s not talking.”

Shayne said, “Remember I mentioned a possible connection between Wanda and pornographic movies. I understand that business has been taken over by television methods, and Prentiss may be able to give you something on that. He’s an assistant TV director.” Shayne was on his way out when he dropped that casual bit of information, and he closed the door before Gentry could ask any questions.

In his car, Shayne backed around and headed for the News building.

Timothy Rourke was waiting in a corner of the City Room when Shayne walked in. The reporter had a thick cardboard folder spread out on his desk and was working through a mass of newspaper clippings and jotting notations and dates on a sheet of copy paper.

He looked up when the detective pulled a chair up beside him, and said, “I don’t know what you’re looking for on Gurley, Mike,” irritably. “This file goes back to 1936 when he first showed up in Miami on Al Capone’s payroll.”

“I’m not sure what I want, either, Tim. But first, what about Henderson?”

“That bastard seems to be in the clear, damn it. Tom Merkle covered the meeting last night and took shorthand notes. They show that Henderson was definitely in there pitching from about nine-thirty until close to eleven. He presided, and had to recognize the speakers and all that.”

Shayne said, “I thought it would be that way.” He bent forward to look at the file on Gurley, and saw that Rourke had worked through the clips to 1942. “What have you found on The Lantern up to this point?”

“Nothing much.” Rourke glanced at his notes. “He was first picked up in ’36 on a concealed-weapon charge. In ’38, he applied for a license to run a bar and was turned down on account of his past association with Capone. But in ’40 he was getting respectable. He went in partnership with one George Stuart in buying a gin mill on the Trail, and since there was real money involved, there were no questions asked about past associations.

“He kept on getting respectable, and was married in ’41 to a local girl by the name of Isabelle Lancaster. They had a big wedding and went on a honeymoon cruise to South America.”

“Wait a minute,” said Shayne sharply. “That was 1941? Just eleven years ago. Did Gurley marry a widow?”

“I don’t think so.” Rourke leafed back through the clip pings and studied an item from the society page. “No.” He read: “‘The bride is the only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Lancaster of Coral Gables. A recent graduate of Bryn Mawr, she has been one of the prominent members of Miami’s younger set,’ blah blah blah. Doesn’t sound like a widow.”

“Does it say Gurley is a widower?” Shayne probed. “Or have you run across any mention of him having a child?”

“No.” Rourke leafed forward through the clippings idly, then said abruptly, “That’s right. He has got a grown daughter now, hasn’t he?”

“She’s engaged to be married, so she must be at least eighteen,” Shayne told him.

“Here’s something,” said Rourke, lifting another item from the society page and showing Shayne a picture of a youthful woman and a young girl of ten or twelve.

“Mrs. J. Pierson Gurley of Coconut Grove,” he read aloud, “and stepdaughter, Janet, who has recently returned from boarding-school to make her home with her parents.”

Shayne said quietly, “I think we’ve got what we want, Tim. You check the license bureau here and see if Gurley admitted to a previous marriage when he took out his license. And get Will Gentry on the phone.”

Rourke glanced at him with feverish curiosity, but lifted his desk phone and asked for a number. In a moment he said, “Will? Mike wants to speak to you,” and handed the receiver to him.

Will Gentry said sourly, “My God, Mike, where’d you pick up this pansy? He wants to put me on television.”

Shayne grinned and said happily, “There’s millions in it, Will. In the meantime, check back with Detroit on Vital Statistics for ’33 and ’34. Find out if Wanda Weatherby had her baby there, and who is listed as the father. What sex and name, and what happened to the child.”

He hung up and said to Rourke, “This could tie up. I’ve been wondering from the first what the hell could be a strong enough motive to cause a man like Gurley to want to murder a woman like Wanda Weatherby. This could be it.”

“Not so fast,” the reporter complained. “You say Wanda had a baby in Detroit?”

Shayne nodded. “I hope she had it there. Will has a Detroit police report that she was released from custody in ’33 because she was pregnant. That would add up perfectly for Miss Janet Gurley who is now on the verge of marrying into Nashville society.”

“You think she and Jack Gurley were married in ’33?”

“Whether they were married or not, if she could prove that Janet was her child and that Gurley was the father, think what a hold she would have on him. If they weren’t married, she could prove the child illegitimate. And it they were married and not divorced, Gurley is a bigamist.

“Either way, there’s plenty of pressure on a man like Gurley who is trying so hard to be respectable and who evidently loves his daughter. With a motive like that to back us up, it wouldn’t be difficult to get a jury to convict Gurley.”

Rourke demanded angrily, “For having a bullet put into the head of a bitch like Wanda who would desert her own child and then use her for blackmail?”

Shayne raised his brows and his mouth twisted cynically. “Everything points to her being a bitch, all right. But the law has never declared an open season on women like her.” He stood up and went on gruffly, “You check the marriage license, Tim. If my hunch is right, this gives us three people with sufficient motive for murder. I still want a fourth.”

“Donald Henderson?”

“Yeh. The guy who has never even met Wanda — who suspects the accusation against him is a Communist plot and that anyone who goes along with it is a fellow traveler,” said Shayne sardonically. “Him, I’d like to throw the hooks into. I’ll check with you this afternoon.” Shayne went out swiftly and drove to a parking-lot near his office, went up in the elevator, and found Lucy Hamilton putting on her hat preparatory to going out for lunch.

Lucy’s eyes sparkled with interest when she saw the look of intense concentration on his face. She asked, “What did you find out, Michael?”

“We’re moving, angel. Did you contact the clipping service?”

“Yes.” She removed her hat and fluffed out her hair, picked up a memorandum pad and read from it.

“Wanda Weatherby wrote them from Los Angeles a little over a year ago, ordering a hundred clippings concerning J. Pierson Gurley and/or his family in Miami. They began sending them to her in weekly batches, and about six months ago sent her the hundredth one. She renewed her order at that time, but shortly afterward gave them a change of address from Los Angeles to Miami. They’ve continued sending the clippings to her ever since.”

Shayne let out a long breath. He said, “I’ve got one more job for you before lunch. Come in here.” He strode into his private office, opened the Classified telephone directory, and picked up a pencil to run it down the agencies listed under Detective Service.

He stopped halfway down the list and made a check mark, went on slowly, stopped again, tugged at his earlobe, shook his head slightly, and went on to another name which he marked clearly and without hesitation. He stopped near the end of the list to make another check mark, then handed the book to Lucy.

He said, “Sit down at my desk and call each of these numbers I’ve marked. Ask for Ned Baker on the first one. Don’t talk to anyone else. If you get Ned tell him you’re — oh — Edith Lane. Anything that doesn’t sound too phony. Ask him if he has a flashlight camera, and tell him you’ve got a job coming up tonight, and ask how much he’ll charge to be on call between seven and ten o’clock to go some place and take a picture. Don’t tell him what the picture will be. But hell, you know what I mean. want to know whether he goes for the job or not.”

“You’re trying to locate the man who took that picture of Wanda Weatherby and Mr. Flannagan,” Lucy said with her usual efficiency.

“Right. It’s the sort of thing you might go to a private dick for. Most of them in Miami wouldn’t touch such an assignment, but the three I’ve marked might not be too scrupulous.” He stepped away from the desk and opened the second drawer of the filing-cabinet and took out a paper cup and a bottle of cognac.

Lucy dialed a number and asked to speak to Ned Baker, After a moment she said, “I see. No. I won’t leave my name. I’ll try later in the week.” She hung up and said to Shayne, “Mr. Baker is in Washington on business.”

“I didn’t like Ned much for the job anyway,” he told her. “Try the next number I checked. Ask for Jed Purly.” He took a sip of cognac and sauntered over to the window overlooking Flagler Street, gazed down at the busy midday scene, and listened to Lucy dialing the second number.

She said, “Mr. Purly? My name won’t mean anything to you, but this is Edith Lane. Do you have a flashlight camera you could use tonight?” She listened briefly, then said, “I see. The thing is, Mr. Purly, I’m not positive I’ll need you tonight, but I expect to. Yes. To take a picture?” Her voice thinned a little. “What do you care, if you’re getting paid for it? I thought that was what private detectives were for. What will your fee be? That’s right. I’ll want you to be handy where I can telephone you between seven and ten and give you instructions. How much? That seems awfully high. Well — why don’t I call you later this afternoon when I’m sure? Yes. Good-by.”

She hung up and said to Shayne, “Mr. Purly is one private detective who hasn’t too many scruples. He’ll do the job for a hundred dollars and no embarrassing questions asked.”

Shayne nodded soberly. “Jed would be my choice. But try the Worden Agency, too. Ask for Peter Enright.”

Lucy dialed the number, got Mr. Enright, and began the same routine. But the tenor of her routine changed swiftly to the defensive as she apparently began avoiding direct answers to pointed questions. She said finally and stiffly, “Very well. If you don’t want my business, I certainly won’t force it on you.”

She hung up and turned to Shayne with flushed cheeks. “He was downright insulting. Wanted to know who had recommended him for the job, who was I and what references I could give him and whether I wanted divorce evidence or what.”

Shayne chuckled. “Good work, angel. That gives us only Jed Purly — if Wanda did use a detective instead of ringing in some friend. You run on to lunch. I’ll drop in on Jed before he gets away from his office.”